The murder of Allende And the end of the Chilean way to socialism Róbinson Rojas Sandford Harper and Row, New York, 1975,1976 Fitzhenry&Whiteside Ltd., Toronto, Canada, 1975 From the publishers A Necessary Explanation CHAPTER 2. CHAPTER 1. Why was the general assassinated? The Artful Staging of a "Suicide" The Schneider case The rebel forces A problem for the U.S. The background of the conspiracy Allende, the new president Staging the "suicide" Now what? The contradictions The hard-liners What really happened Strength and weakness NOTES for Chapter 1 The constitutionalists NOTES for Chapter 2 CHAPTER 3. The bosses conspire and the workers CHAPTER 4. mobilize The Pentagon tells the generals to go The empty pots ahead The area of social property The political failure A minister general The elections To advance or not to advance The generals A new military plot Now or never October 1972 NOTES for Chapter 4 NOTES for Chapter 3 CHAPTER 5. The general is not an honorable man The last message CHAPTER 6. A new step forward The inferno A new military insurrection Operation Pincers A long meeting The tortures The pawns The women A murder Corruption Prats's ruin NOTES for Chapter 6 And the Navy The last days The oath NOTES for Chapter 5 Back to Books ------------------------------------------------------------------ ROBINSON ROJAS SANDFORD, "The Murder of Allende and the end of the Chilean Way to socialism", Harper and Row, 1975 ---------------------------------------------------------- NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHERS: "Ever since 1973 coup in Chile there has been considerable speculation about what really happened and about the involvement of the U.S. government and U.S. business interests. Now, this explosive account by a Chilean journalist who lived through it all reveals the military, industrial, and commercial conspiracy, abetted by North American interests, to bring down the Allende government. "Beginning on the day of the coup with Allende's murder and the military's artful staging of his "suicide", the book goes on to reveal the background of intrigue and counter-intrigue; the participation of the CIA, the Pentagon, and U.S. business interests, as well as that of the Braziliangovernment; the sinister roles of the Chilean armed forces, police forces, and political parties; the events throughout Chile on the day of the coup as the massive military apparatus got under way; and the reign of terror and torture unleashed on the civilian population. This is a fast-moving, well-paced narrative, with a "State of Siege" quality to it. It will be an important and controversial book which neither Allendistas nor the conspirators and their respectable fronts will like. It shows the latter as a gang of premeditated murderers and the former, including Allende, as honorable but very foolish men, who, until the very last moments, believed that the military was made up of loyal soldiers, faithful to the Constitution they were sworn to uphold. The author is an excellent reporter and has carefully woven together the strands of seemingly unrelated events into a coherent, compelling, and well-documented story of who did what to whom, when." ===================================================== (excerpts from "A Necessary Explanation") "This book is an accusation. As such, it is written in the manner of an extensive police report. It recounts the story of an assassination: the assassination of one particular man, of thousands of other men and women, and of the ideas of those men and women. Here is the story behind the assassination of Dr. Salvador Allende Gossens, the constitutional President of Chile. The main actors in this drama are his murderers: their habits, their ideologies, their meetings, their plans, their conspiracies. "This is not a book that analyzes what happened. It is a book that tells what happened and how it happened. And because I am writing as a journalist, a Chilean, a leftist, and a personal participant in the events in Chile from 1970 to 1973, the reader will also find an Allende very different from the image created by the funeral eulogies, the statues, the posters, the worl-wide homages. Here is an Allende stripped of the mask of perfection, of "everything he did, he did well", that so many people have been at such pains to present. Here the heroic picture of Allende changes to one of a vacillating, contradictory man attempting to defend "the Chilean way to socialism" but making the political mistakes that opened the door to the forces of fascist repression in Chile, aided and abetted by U.S. interests, both commercial and governmental. "This is not to say that Salvador Allende was not a hero. No one doubts that. No Chilean is unaware that Allende went down fighting, without any hope of survival unless he surrendered. And he did not surrender. Heroes die like that, and that is how he died. And that is how many thousands of his fellow Chileans also died, hopelessly defending a democracy crushed by the tanks, armored cars, fighter planes, and machine guns of the rebel soldiers. Allende once said: "Let them know this, let them hear this very clearly, let it make a deep impression on them: I will defend this Chilean revolution and I will defend the Popular government. This people have given me this mandate; I have no alternative. Only by riddling me with bullets will they be able to end our will to accomplish the people's programa". So they riddled him with bullets. A few hours before his death, as the rebel attack was under way, he broadcast a speech to his countrymen: "Thus the first page of this story has been written. My people and the people of the Americas will write the rest." This is the Allende you will find in this book. And you will read how the common people, the victims of the coup, were denied the opportunity to organize for their own protection. In sum, while this book is a denunciation of Allende's assassins, the generals and admirals in Santiago, Chile, and in Washington, it is also a denunciation of the tragic and vacillating conduct of those who called themselves leaders of the people, but left their people defenseless against the fascist-imperialist attack... ...The Chilean people paid for this mistake with more than 15,000 dead, more than 30,000 prisoners, more than 100,000 brutally tortured, more than 200,000 dismissed for political reasons, and more than 30,000 students expelled from the university by the military...The Chilean military unleashed their reign of terror against the Chilean people in order to protect the interests of the great North American consortia (Anaconda, Kennecott, ITT, et al), as well as the strategic interests of the military-industrial complex in Washington...R.R.(1975)" CHAPTER 1. The Artful Staging of a "Suicide" "A disciplined, organized, and aware people is, along with an honest and loyal armed forces and military police, the best defense of the Popular government and of the future of the country." (SALVADOR ALLENDE, speech May 1, 1971, in Plaza Bulnes, Santiago, Chile.) "And they have the power, they can smash us, but the social processes cannot be held back either by crime or by force. History is ours, and the People will make it." (SALVADOR ALLENDE, speech September 11,1973, at 9:15 A.M., in the Palacio de La Moneda, Santiago, Chile, taped as the attack by the rebel generals was under way and broadcast by Radio Magallanes.) Six or seven minutes past 2 P.M. on September 11, 1973, an infiltration patrol of the San Bemardo Infantry School commanded by Captain Roberto Garrido burst into the second floor of the Chilean Presidential Palace, Santiago's Palacio de La Moneda. Charging up the main staircase and covering themselves with spurts from their FAL machine guns, the patrol advanced to the entrance of the Salon Rojo, the state reception hall. Inside, through dense smoke coming from fires elsewhere in the building and from the explosion of tear gas bombs, grenades, and shells from Sherman tank cannons, the patrol captain saw a band of civilians braced to defend themselves with submachine guns. In a reflex action, Captain Garrido loosed a short burst from his weapon. One of his three bullets struck a civilian in the stomach. A soldier in Garrido's patrol imitated his commander, wounding the same man in the abdomen. As the man writhed on the floor in agony, 2 THE MURDER OF ALLENDE Garrido suddenly realized who he was: Salvador Allende. "We shit on the President!" he shouted. There was more machine-gun fire from Garrido's patrol. Allende was riddled with bullets. As he slumped back dead, a second group of civilian defenders broke into the Salon Rojo from a side door. Their gunfire drove back Garrido and his patrol, who fled down the main staircase to the safety of the first floor, which the rebel troops had occupied. Some of the civilians returned to the Salon Rojo to see what could be done. Among them was Dr. Enrique Paris, a psychiatrist and President Allende's personal doctor. He leaned over the body, which showed the points of impact of at least six shots in the abdomen and lower stomach region. After taking Allende's pulse, he signaled that the President was dead. Someone, out of nowhere, appeared with a Chilean flag, and Enrique Paris covered the body with it. The furious battle between the first and second floors continued. Dr. Paris's group left the half-destroyed Salon Rojo, whose roof was now in flames. In groups of four and five people, the defenders continued fighting, most of them unaware that President Allende was dead.